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Australian tennis professional Andrew Harris (ATP 206) has criticized Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic for their lack of commitment to lower-tier players, claiming that they would keep all the money at the top of the sport.
Tennis is going through a difficult time. While the top players are allowed to play at charity events or other exhibition fights, many of their professional colleagues cannot currently participate in tournaments. And thus lose their income, which is not very high regardless of the Corona crisis.
Andrew Harris is therefore calling for the tennis money to be restructured so that the money in the world rankings is distributed more downwards. “Roger, Rafa and Novak have been at the top for so long that they almost forget what it’s like to be in these lower positions,” he notes in the podcast “Break Point”.
The Swiss in particular gets verbal punches from him: «I know that Federer is only after money at the top. He may say in public the things people want to hear, like redistribution support for lower tier players … but when it comes to voting, he prefers to keep the money at the top. »
Not interested due to lack of reference
He thinks more of world number one. “I think Novak is the top 3 who most keen in meetings to pass money to the lower ranks,” said Harris. For this he criticized the Serb for not participating in an important zoom call, which dealt with the future of the ailing tour.
Djokovic, as the President of the Player Council, preferred to play football with the other participants on his initiated Adria Tour. And the effects of the fiasco with the various contagions will inevitably have consequences for the other months on the tour – for everyone involved in tennis.
His conclusion is sobering for the three dominators of recent tennis history: “It doesn’t concern them, so they’re not so committed.”
The fact that only the best hundred of them can live in a global sport is simply a problem, after all, there are also outside players who are really good, according to Harris. Of course, the officials in particular are asked, he says in frustration. The 26-year-old has been on the tour for nine years and mostly plays in ITF or Challenger tournaments. In total, he earned $ 235,903 in his career.
Trench warfare between the camps
Harris’ Indeed, the overall impression contrasts with the public efforts of the Top 3. At the beginning of the Corona crisis, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer declared that they would support the establishment of an aid fund for less well-off professionals. At the time, Dominic Thiem, who got a lot of malice for it, did not agree with his competitors.
The gap between the biggest figureheads and players outside the top 100 can also be seen, for example, in the tournament tournaments aimed at on the tour. While top players in particular expressed their skepticism about holding the next Grand Slam in New York under difficult conditions, athletes from the lower regions of the ranking are urgently dependent on the income.
The first men’s tournament is scheduled to take place on August 14 in Washington.
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